


the one who carries the crown, and the one who carries her

by Blackcat413



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, POV Hubert von Vestra, SO, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, and by the third draft we had full-blown sexual tension, but it evolved, i didn't intend to write this as a shipfic when i first started out, let me just say this, ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 22:24:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21088778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackcat413/pseuds/Blackcat413
Summary: When she was in her room, she was always nude, unless she was getting ready to go out in public. He rarely bat an eye anymore, which he prided himself on. When he mentioned this offhandedly to her once over tea, she said, “You focus too much on such a trivial thing. I haven’t been thinking about it at all.” He pulled his collar up in embarrassment after that while she sipped tea, one bare leg crossed over the other. “Why don’t you take off that coat of yours?”





	the one who carries the crown, and the one who carries her

**Author's Note:**

> I warn you, this may be unsatisfying. I had the idea stuck in my head but this is probably as far as I'm going to get for now. It's a finished piece, but please let me know what you think because I may come back to it.

Edelgard had been watched incessantly as a child. That is why now-  _ especially  _ now- she allowed him to see her like this. She did not mind the watching. She liked it, even. Why else would she ask him to come, day after day, even when she did not need him to?

That was what Hubert figured, anyway. Even when they were younger, she had always been unbothered by her own nudity. His liege was ever the pragmatist; her eagle eyes didn’t see the use of shuffling about with modesty. When in trusted company, she did not weaponize or guard her body. Still, though- with him, it was different. 

He had long learned not to be alarmed when, alone with her in her room, she began to strip unhurriedly. In the beginning, he stumbled around his words frequently, his normal collected speech brought to a screeching halt. When he averted his eyes and faced the wall, Edelgard sighed heavily, but did not encourage or scold him; she let him decide for himself what he wanted to do without giving him any orders. The first time, she said, “It’s just my body, Hubert. Get out if you must, but I’ll be like this for a while.”

He knew that she was trying to be casual with her nudity, but at the start, he had trouble adjusting. After that first incident, he took careful pains to knock especially loudly at her door and clearly hear her response before he entered. Although that didn’t really help him either; she always told him he could come in, whether she was dressed or not. 

When he came to wake her in the morning, she admitted him when she was tiredly sprawled out on her bed, the blankets kicked off at first and then lazily pulled back up so she could snatch up the last vestiges of warmth from them. She admitted him when she was standing at her wardrobe or her closet, picking out her clothes for the day and draping them over her shoulder as she chose them. She even admitted him when she was in the bath, although that was no longer outrageous because of how often she lounged about unclothed. Sometimes she asked him to draw a bath for her while she was working, too invested in her papers to get up right away, and then asked him to keep her company in the bathroom instead of reading, ostensibly so that she would not accidentally get a book wet in the bathtub.

Eventually, she just told him to stop knocking because she was always going to let him in regardless of her state of dress or undress. The first day that he obeyed that order, she did not wake up immediately upon hearing the creak of the door. He took a moment, played off as casually as possible to himself, to watch her sleep. He felt strange and awkward doing it, but she said she did not care; if she said otherwise, he would never go against her wishes. But he was curious because he was afraid to look at her properly when she was naked, and the only time he did not feel strange doing it was when she was not awake to see him. Normally she followed the path of his gaze, seemingly detached but still with far more interest hidden in the gleam of her eye; she wanted to see where he looked. He did not know why, but he guessed it was because she liked to see the natural path of his interest in her body. He did not know what to do with that, at first.

But now he was watching her sleep. She was bare in bed, of course: a surprisingly restless sleeper, he noted, as the covers were kicked mostly off the bed and laid in a rumpled heap on the floor. As it was, the first light of dawn shone through the window and onto her pale skin. It was not yet autumn, so the chill in the air was absent- the windowpane untouched by frost and Edelgard unbothered. She was striking.

She had not been put off at all when he had awkwardly woken her for the day while standing over her. She regarded him lazily with one eye as she rubbed sleep out of the other, propping herself up on her other elbow. He swallowed, already turning his head to look away, but she cut him off. “Don’t.” He obediently turned back around to look at her again. “Hand me my hairbrush,” she said softly, and that was the end of that.

Hubert, flustered though he was at first, gradually got used to this behavior. He ceased looking at it like the Emperor being improper and began noticing the details of her habits. Edelgard always chose her clothes with care; they were militaristic and grand, fitting for her status, but also feminine. She forsook neither her beauty nor her agency. She had many different outfits, of course, but almost everything in her wardrobe was brilliantly crimson, and she offset the color with gold. He often wondered if she was invoking the persona of the bloodthirsty Emperor on purpose or if it was merely subconscious.

When she was in her room, she was always nude, unless she was getting ready to go out in public. He rarely bat an eye anymore, which he prided himself on. When he mentioned this offhandedly to her once over tea, she said, “You focus too much on such a trivial thing. I haven’t been thinking about it at all.” He pulled his collar up in embarrassment after that while she sipped tea, one bare leg crossed over the other. “Why don’t you take off that coat of yours?”

A challenge, then, for him to step out of his comfort zone. He had considered being naked with her before, but he would never do it unless she outright asked him to. Besides, he was unnerved by the idea. But still, he did not argue with her about the coat. It was just a coat. He let it slide off his shoulders.

“Mmh.” She took another thoughtful sip of her tea, studying his face carefully. “Thank you.” She asked nothing else of him that day.

She had a routine, which he knew well. She would remove her accessories, painstakingly laying them on the table: it was her crown that she handled most reverently of all. Sometimes when she put it down, she would trace the curled horns with her finger, and he felt her burden in the silence. She had traded her oh-so-pretty high heeled shoes from their monastery days for a pair of long boots, which, after the crown, were the next to go. They were followed by her heavy cape, which she would shed and, before it hit the floor, catch and hang back up. Then Hubert would usually help her with the buttons on her dress, although only she knew how to untangle herself from its many layers and ruffles. Only then would she discard her underthings, if she wore any. Then he would collect them and get them ready to wash for whenever she was to wear them again. He came to understand, through this process, the innermost workings of her brain. The way she treated her clothes when she wasn’t wearing them was more revealing than the swell of her breasts or the curve of her ass could ever be.

Five years ago, the routine had been different. She had no horned crown, her hair unbound except for the ribbons which she would remove- one at a time- every night, like clockwork. The right one went first, its twin quick to follow, and she set them both on the desk. She was unkind to her uniform, which she would roughly tug and pull until she got it off of her body and onto the floor. She was rather partial to her red leggings, which she would fold and put on the bed unless they needed to be washed. In those days, she delicately stepped out of her panties and kicked them aside, a habit which she still mirrored five years later. He had not always been there for that, but on occasion, she asked him to come with her to her quarters while they worked on plans or homework. She did most of that nude. Her ritual undressing looked different then, but the energy was the same no matter how old she was. Edelgard was Edelgard, after all.

She let him help with her clothes most of the time. He would slide the sleeves over her bare arms, smoothing the ruffles on the backside of her dress where she couldn’t reach. She liked it when he did this, usually- said the tactile sensation of his fingers skipping over her skin gave her goosebumps, and it did. On the rare days where she didn’t want him to dress her, she’d push his hands out of the way and send him back to the couch or the table or, sometimes, the bed. He’d watch with rapt attention as she shrugged into the clothing, doing up the buttons methodically and shaking out the wrinkles when she was done. He found himself staring more and more often.

Somewhere along the line, devotion had blurred into something else. It didn’t matter. He carried on like usual, the only difference being he was slightly more acutely aware of her at all times. He was still the only one allowed to touch her unclothed; he still helped her dress and undress, skating his fingers along her arms and back to wring the shivers out of her. He pressed no further than that and was stoic until she wasn’t, until she asked him to do something like take his coat or his shoes off with that look in her eye that said she was thinking about something else. They were happy to walk that boundary, for the time being. He could do worse than to serve the woman who wore his heart in her crown.


End file.
